New Orleans lynching of 1891
- Date:
- March 14, 1891
What was the New Orleans lynching of 1891?
Why did the lynching lead to an international crisis?
What were the accusations against the Italian immigrants?
How did the U.S. government respond to the diplomatic tension with Italy?
New Orleans lynching of 1891, the largest mass lynching of Italian Americans to take place in the United States. The occurrence happened on March 14, 1891, at Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans. Following the acquittal and mistrial of several Italian immigrants accused of murdering New Orleans police chief David Hennessy, a large vigilante mob broke into the prison and murdered 11 of the accused. The lynching provoked a major international crisis and heightened tensions between Italy and the United States, leading Italy to temporarily sever diplomatic relations.
Historical context
Between the 1880s and the 1920s, millions of Europeans immigrated to the United States. Among them were approximately four million Italian immigrants, many from Sicily and other parts of southern Italy. Upon arrival, Italian immigrants frequently faced deep-seated prejudice, discrimination, nativism, and xenophobia from native-born Americans. Beginning in the late 1880s, anti-immigrant organizations emerged, and violence against immigrants, including lynchings of Italians, became more common. For example, the Ku Klux Klan added Italian immigrants to the list of groups of people that it persecuted. Additionally many newspapers reflected and reinforced fear of and prejudice against immigrants, insisting that Sicilians and other southern Italians were inferior to northern Europeans and people of northern European heritage. In New Orleans, this rhetoric was especially intensified by inflammatory media coverage. For example, an article in The Daily Picayune, published on October 17, 1890, denounced Italian immigrants as “paupers” and “criminals,” stoking fears that contributed to the climate of hostility that culminated in the 1891 lynching.
Arrest and trial of the accused
On October 15, 1890, New Orleans police chief Hennessy was walking home late at night when he was ambushed and shot by several assailants. At the scene, he reportedly used a derogatory slur while telling another officer that Italians had shot him. The rumor that Italians had killed Hennessy spread quickly, and New Orleans Mayor Joseph A. Shakspeare ordered the police to immediately arrest any Italians found out on the street. Hennessy was taken to the hospital and treated for his gunshot wounds. Although he lived through the night, talking with doctors and visitors, no one asked him to name or describe his assailants, and he did not offer any information. Hennessy died early the next morning.
Police officers arrested hundreds of men of Italian heritage, some recent immigrants and others who were native-born. Many were arrested simply because they were in the neighborhood where the crime occurred or because officers thought they looked suspicious. Shakspeare, known for his hostility toward Italian immigrants, appointed a “committee of 50,” including many of the city’s most prominent residents, to investigate Hennessy’s murder. The committee ultimately failed to uncover any conclusive evidence linking the accused men to the crime.
Despite the lack of evidence, 19 men were indicted for the murder of Hennessy. The trial of nine of the accused began on February 16, 1891, and concluded on March 12. The jury returned its verdicts on March 13, acquitting six of the defendants because of insufficient evidence. Jury members were unable to come to a decision on three others, and mistrials were declared. Regardless of the verdicts, the judge sent all the men back to the prison because there was still an indictment of “lying in wait with intent to commit murder” pending against them.
The next day, local newspapers published notices calling for “good citizens” to assemble at the Henry Clay Monument on Canal Street at 10 am “to take steps to remedy the failure of justice in the Hennessy case. Come prepared for action.” Pasquale Corte, the Italian consul in New Orleans, saw the advertisements and, fearing mob violence, asked Louisiana Gov. Francis R.T. Nicholls to intervene. The governor declined to act, saying he needed the mayor’s permission, but the mayor had left home for a breakfast appointment and could not be located.
Thousands of New Orleans residents—including attorneys, government officials, and other prominent citizens—arrived at the monument at 10 am. Members of the committee of 50 spoke before the crowd, urging them to action, and led the mob to Parish Prison. Warden Lemuel Davis refused to open the prison gate, but the mob forced its way in through a smaller wooden gate. Davis released the 19 men out of their cells and told them to hide throughout the prison. Once inside, mob members chased the men through the prison, beat them, and shot them. They hung two of the victims’ bodies from a lamppost and a tree.
The 11 victims included three men whom the jury had acquitted: Joseph P. Macheca, a fruit importer, and Antonio Bagnetto and Antonio Marchesi, both fruit peddlers. The three men whose trials had been declared mistrials—Pietro Monasterio, a cobbler, Antonio Scaffidi, a fruit peddler, and Emmanuele Polizzi, a street vendor—were also lynched. The other five men who were murdered had not yet been tried. They were James Caruso and Rocco Geraci, both stevedores; Frank Romero, a ward politician; Loreto Comitis, a tinsmith; and Charles Traina, a rice plantation laborer. The other 8 men of the 19 indicted managed to escape the vigilante mob by hiding in the prison.
Local and national newspapers largely presumed the guilt of the victims and praised the lynching. The New York Times, for example, wrote approvingly of the event in a March 15, 1891, article with the headline “Chief Hennessy Avenged; Eleven of His Italian Assassins Lynched by a Mob. An Uprising of Indignant Citizens in New-Orleans—The Prison Doors Forced and the Italian Murderers Shot Down.” There was a grand jury investigation, but on May 5, 1891, a grand jury declined to indict anyone involved in the lynching. No one was ever prosecuted for the murder of the 11 men.
The lynchings strained the United States’ relationship with Italy. Italian minister Saverio Fava announced on March 31, 1891, that his government had instructed him to leave Washington, D.C., and return to Italy, and Italy announced that it was severing diplomatic relations with the United States. Pres. Benjamin Harrison, in response, removed the U.S. legation from Italy. Eventually, the president’s administration paid $25,000 in reparations to the families of the murdered men. As a conciliatory gesture to Italian Americans and to help restore diplomatic goodwill, Harrison also issued a proclamation recognizing Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration on October 12, 1892. Although Italian Americans had long celebrated Christopher Columbus as a symbol of pride, the proclamation did not reference his Italian heritage. Instead it focused on U.S. progress since 1492.
In 2019 LaToya Cantrell, mayor of New Orleans, officially apologized to the Italian American community in New Orleans for the lynching.